There are a number of different technologies for providing high bandwidth data communication services to customer premises (e.g., businesses and residences). One such approach is Fiber to the Home technology, which uses optical fibers to carry optical signals in an optical data network from a central office to customer premises. Wavelength Division Multiplexing Passive Optical Network (WDM PON) architectures that are based on Reflective Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (RSOAs) or externally seeded Fabry Perot (FP) laser interferometers may be used in Fiber to the Home technology. One advantage of such WDM PON architectures is that they allow for providing colorless Optical Line Terminals (OLT) at a central office and colorless Optical Network Units (ONUs) at customer premises.
Both RSOAs and FP laser interferometers require a seeding source. For instance, sliced Broadband Light Sources (BLSs) are used in some implementations. In other implementations, a Wavelength Division Multiplexer (WDM) continuous wave (CW) laser comb is used.
In some networks, modular components may be used, and the system may be scaled by adding components. In other types of networks, depending on the types of components used, an integrated solution may be used, or a shared architecture may be used that may require a network to be equipped with all the seeding channels. In some cases, one or more seeding channels may be wasted or unused, if the network is under-subscribed.